Authentic+Writing

Holly Kimble

Kixmiller, Lori A. (2004). Standards without Sacrifice: The Case for Authentic Writing. //English Journal//, 94, 29-33.

In this article, Lori Kixmiller, a composition teacher in Illinois, examines the importance of allowing students to have authentic experiences when writing, while still meeting state and national standards. Kixmiller begins her article with research paper topics and how a disinterested and challenging student soon became immersed in research, when she listened to the contemporary issues posed by her peers. Eventually the student became interested in the research, when she thought of an issue that mattered to her, police brutality or racial profiling. The student’s purpose was not only to research the topic, but persuade her classmates that changes needed to take place in Indianapolis and surrounding areas in which police profiled minority teens. The authentic research paper became important as the research was shared with a real audience, and the student was able to write on a topic that mattered to her. Kixmiller realizes the time involved for teachers to develop writing units, which have authentic purpose and audience for teens. The author knows teaching teens about different types of audiences can be overwhelming, yet “it is vital, especially given our current educational climate of formulaic writing for standardized assessments”. Recently, the author attended a conference improving writing for statewide assessment tests. She quickly addresses that most states, rarely allow students to address real-world issues where students might share and publish their writing. The writing culture now has teachers seeing and teaching writing as a quantifiable process-“one that can be categorized, classified, and rated on a scale of 1 to 6”. According to Grant Wiggins, he states “students should never be asked to write for purposes that are not grounded in real-world experiences”. Writing should not be contrived formulaic essays; teens need to incorporate the writing they use in the real-world: emailing, writing letters of complaint, compliment, or concern, journaling, and scrapbooking for weddings, vacations,etc. Authentic writing allows the following: “writing is student centered, interest-based, and meaning-driven instead of assessment centered, score-based, and accountability- driven”. Teachers need to promote writing that requires students to move from prior knowledge to creation and knowledge of new information, to analyze a writing situation and write to an intended audience, and to incorporate authentic writing prompts that are researched, published, and shared with a real audience. The latter half of the article focuses on the implementation of senior projects at East Peoria Community High School in central Illinois. Here, the school implemented the senior project which involved: research and then creation of a product from the research, which is shared with a real audience comprised of teachers and community members. The senior projects engage students in meaningful work, pushing them beyond state standards. In closing, students need writing experiences that interest them and the writing is addressed to an audience, thus it has a purpose. The writing classroom should be a place of “growth, discussion, development, synthesis, and change for both teachers and students”. The writing should promote self-reflection and challenge students to discover their original voice through authentic writing.